


i'm trying hard to take it back

by buries



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gen, Half-Sibling Incest, Season/Series 04, Sibling Incest, Sibling Rivalry, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-19
Updated: 2012-10-19
Packaged: 2017-11-16 14:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buries/pseuds/buries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"first, ‘bekah, lets get you a jacket. we can’t have my reputation tarnished by you looking like a strumpet.”</i> or the one where <i>always and forever</i> is temporarily broken and a new pact is made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm trying hard to take it back

**Author's Note:**

> written for jay, who is trying to convince me that klebekah is not so bad (and also gave me the prompt in the form of [this gifset](http://craccola.tumblr.com/post/33886992014/seven-devils-florence-the-machine)). this took a completely different direction of its own. **contains spoilers for 4x01**. written to the prompt _everyday is the same / when looking straight ahead / caught in the safety of routine_. title is from fun's _we are young_.

When Klaus disowns her, she fills with rage. She wants to kick his kingdom down, to feel the grains of sand crush beneath her bare feet, but she finds herself being violently swept into the arms of Prague first.

*

“How nice to see you, dear sister,” Kol says, glancing into a mirror. Trying on the fortieth suit for the day - as she’s counted while she’s watched him from across the street - creates the desire to rip it from his body and perhaps shove it down his throat. The collar does nothing to compliment the angles of his face, for one. Kol wouldn’t know how to choose a good suit even if it came and bit him in the arse. He glances at her in the mirror, making eye contact there. She wishes he would look at her. “It’s been so long.”

“Don’t be an arse,” she says automatically, face scrunching up as she thinks about poking her tongue out at him and his ever growing smirk. She doesn’t. 

“Did Niklaus finally bore of you?” he turns now, adjusting the way the jacket sits on his lanky frame by pulling at the collar. Rebekah glares daggers. A hand goes to his heart, “Ouch, ‘Bekah. How the mighty have fallen,” he says, though his voice finally lacks its venom.

She doesn’t look him in the eye. “Nik and I are no longer,” she manages, but the way her throat seems to close up at the mere thought of her and Niklaus never being in the same sentence or sharing the same breath makes the cavity in her chest ache.

Kol’s quiet for a few moments. She swears she can count the decades in his manufactured silence. His hands fall from the collar of his jacket. “I believe we have much to catch up on,” he says, voice civil, reminding her of a boy who didn’t long for his younger brother, now six feet under the earth and completely forgotten, of a boy who didn’t hold the anger of the world within the palms of his hands. Things were simpler when their heartbeats dictated whether they lived or died. The space in their chests are capable of holding such grief that sometimes Rebekah wishes she were human to simply feel less and mourn less for the men she’s lost in her life. She’s staring at one right now. The other she no longer remembers the coordinates to his grave. 

“First, ‘Bekah, lets get you a jacket. We can’t have my reputation tarnished by you looking like a strumpet.”

*

Kol buys her lunch. She thinks of pressing her hand to his forehead, like a human would, or stabbing him in the wrist with her fork, like an immortal sister would, but she, instead, kicks him under the table like a bratty child of any age and decade would to a brother.

She doesn’t know why his hand flies to soothe the pain he’s long since felt. He’s _such_ a drama queen. “Did you learn how to show your gratitude while graduating from your caveman course?”

“That didn’t even sting,” she spares him a glance before picking up the menu with the tips of her fingers. She makes a point to look interested in the list of dishes and wines as he moans in fake pain.

“Yes, but your silence does,” he says, now upright. His hands are in his lap, perhaps unsure of where to sit now that they are by themselves, for once civil and acting the part of the humans they once were. She always thought he forgot how to be one of them, but his back his straight in his chair and his napkin has disappeared to rest on his lap. 

When her gaze finally meets his, she finds his face is sober, mirthless, serious, like Elijah. It’s now she sees how one could never separate them when they were younger; Kol’s the spitting image of her older brother in looks, but their personalities split like a fork in the road. “You know I love spending time being annoyed shitless by you, Rebekah, but why is it that you’re giving me the time of day?” His hands press against the table cloth, a mannerism stolen from Elijah.

She opens her mouth to speak but nothing comes out. She looks like a fish, so she stops trying to feel the words with her lips, and preoccupies herself with finding the perfect place to settle the menu on the table. The waiter doesn’t come even as she telepathically tries to summon him. “Nik and I -” she presses her hands against the tablecloth in an effort to rid it of its creases, of all its faults, but she finds it stubborn and unmovable beneath her hands. “I don’t wish to go into it here, Kol.”

“Yes, the little circle,” his hands press hard against the table. She swears she hears the tablecloth rip as he tries to smoothen it. “I remember it so fondly. After all, I was always on the outside looking in.” He doesn’t take a breath to let her interject. “Let me guess, Elijah knows the reason you are here? Couldn’t find him so I was the next resort as poor dear Finn is sadly sleeping with the fishes?”

“I wasn’t aware you had such a severe case of jealousy,” she says through gritted teeth, finding her brows furrowing at his reaction. Kol never turns serious, or jealous, or even remotely open to what he’s feeling. He’s hidden it beneath humour and sarcasm and quips that sometimes sting her heart worse than vervain. Perhaps it’s the youngest brother syndrome or because Kol has never gained the approval of Mother and Father or the disapproval of Mother and Father. Kol exists to take up space as the one who remains forgotten, left in the wake of three siblings who clench their fingers around each others until their bones almost break underneath the new strength they possess; _always and forever_ , three against the world rather than four. Kol was always with Henrick before Niklaus took his place. “It’s not like that,” she says, arching her neck.

“No?” His eyebrows raise. “Then what is it? Niklaus is certainly not dead. That Damon Salvatore wouldn’t be sending me texts containing images of himself if he was.”

“You enjoy those,” she says.

“Perhaps,” he replies. “I do need a few new texting buddies since dear Jeremy no longer wishes to be mates.” He stretches the last word out, like it’s some personal offense that the boy is not his friend, when they were never friends to begin with. It’s a puzzle Rebekah will never quite understand, mostly because she never takes the time to.

Kol’s lonely. She understands it. She finds herself glancing down, considering which piece of her she wants to chip off and give to him. She’s never really given him anything but a decent quarrel. “Nik has - He’s not the brother I thought him to be, Kol.”

“And what have I been saying since the moment that dagger left my chest, Rebekah?”

She arches her brow. Kol says many things about Niklaus, going to the point of even making a journal out of it just to be a dramatic twat. “That he has really horrible taste in pants?”

Kol looks at her pointedly. “All he sees is himself. He’s not one of us, Rebekah. If he was, why is it that my memory does not contain the trivia of the early twentieth century? Why is there a blank hole in my life that can never be filled unless I somehow find a DeLorean?”

“You watch way too many movies,” she mumbles, but he hears her as clear as day. He smirks.

“And yet I have a pivotal scene every time we speak.”

*

She tells him while intoxicated. Days after, a few weeks before the one month anniversary of when she chose Kol over her dear, beloved Niklaus. He doesn’t ply her with alcohol. It’s the other way around. She figures if she gets him so wasted he won’t be able to properly react, to seethe with anger and curse the day Niklaus was born. 

Instead, his reaction is to throw a glass against a wall and flip a table. He slurs a “Family piss on each other but they _never_ abandon them” and starts to sing “Nik is a shithead” at the top of his lungs within the same breath.

It’s after he butchers a song about a sailor by interjecting it with insults towards Niklaus that he falls on her, arms heavy around his shoulders, as he hugs her like the boy she remembers holding hands with and begging for make-believe stories of adventures he’s never experienced. He mumbles something, like a sorry or an I love you, but she figures she mishears him. 

Kol’s allergic to the words.

*

Niklaus tracks them down in Hungary, but Kol never speaks of it. She’s out shopping, dining on a gentleman with the accent belonging to America and a camera hanging around his neck she’s sure Kol would enjoy using to piss her off. 

The apartment is a mess when she returns, an hour or so later. There’s blood on the dip of her neck. There’s blood coating Kol’s face as he grins. “Renovating,” he says, arms wide as he gestures around the mess of the room. Glass coats the floor, cushions are split open, furniture has been haphazardly dismantled, and Kol’s favourite shirt has had the sleeve completely ripped off. 

Kol never says he split his brother’s lip and stole his shoe while pressing the leg of a table straight into his chest in search of that heart of his. He never did find it.

*

“Elijah is in a nice little country called Australia,” he says one day. They’re in France, the city of love. Kol finds it ironic, the fact that this is the country he loves to taste, and he’s in it with the sister he loves to ridicule. He finds it’s the best fitting romance for him, a romance of the ages, he says, and wishes he could live in France for the rest of his days. 

His head continues to dip into the arch of the neck of a woman as he sits on the couch. He sounds bored. His movements are bored, lazy, and she knows he’s itching to chase wild, exotic animals on the other side of the globe. “I say we go catch a crocodile,” he mumbles against the woman’s skin.

“We just got here,” Rebekah pouts, bags in her hands. She’s bought him a new shirt, something similar to the one he mourned for in Hungary.

“And now we’re leaving,” he says, pushing the woman off of him. She moves, without thinking, without life, into the kitchen. He stands.

“You love Paris,” she says. “You never want to leave.”

“Perhaps I want to work on my tan, Rebekah,” his voice comes out a little harsh, a little demanding, and it reminds her of Niklaus for only a moment. “We are leaving,” he says, approaching her. He takes the bag from her, gently though, and says, a voice matching his movements, “If you wish.”

“After the week is over,” she says after a few beats. Her neck is arched, her back straight, and she hands the rest of the bags over to him. She waits for him to challenge her. It never comes. “I want to buy some new shoes.”

It’s unsettling not being a blind follower.

*

He’s running from Niklaus. She never really thinks that he’s running from him in an attempt to create distance and space between him and her. Their brother is hot on their heels until Kol manages to weave a web of footprints leading left while they go right. 

His nose keeps breaking every time she returns to their place of temporary residency. She never questions why and he never makes a show of it.

*

He catches them, like he always does. Kol is not a slow runner. He slips in and out of cracks and crevices, unnoticed, unseen, unheard, that she sometimes thinks he gets caught on purpose. He always did win their version of hide and seek.

He finds them in England. Kol likes the red telephone booths and has attempted, several times, to lift one up from its hinges, in broad daylight, to move it into his room. She doesn’t understand his mumblings about wearing his underwear on top of his pants, but she makes fun of him just the same.

Kol is sweating, except he’s not, as he opens the door. “Rebekah,” Niklaus says when they step over the threshold. Kol stops. Rebekah walks into the hard back of him. She wonders how a dagger could’ve penetrated his flesh. “Good to see you, Kol,” Niklaus says, jaw tight, eyes hard, and she swears a dagger rests in the palm of his hands that rest behind his back.

She feels like an animal, skittish and afraid, and she remains behind Kol. Her neck aches with the ghost of his fingerprints pressing hard into her windpipe. “What are you doing here?” 

“Finding you, ‘Bekah,” he says, taking a step forward. Kol doesn’t budge. “To bring you back home.”

“I don’t have a home,” she says, her voice loud. Kol flinches, she swears he does; it’s a moment that she would’ve missed if she wasn’t looking to the back of his neck for some sort of support. She blinks rapidly, pressing against Kol’s arm as she moves to stand in front of him. “You are not my brother.”

“Don’t be rash, ‘Bekah,” Niklaus says, closing the distance very slowly between them. “You’ll always be my sister.”

“I’ll always be your plaything,” she finds her voice growing louder, perhaps loud enough to shake the walls of the building they’re in. A tear falls from her eye. She wipes at it angrily with the side of her hand. “I’m nothing but a pawn for you to play with, Nik.”

“Rebekah -”

“Haven’t you done enough?” Kol moves behind her, close enough to press a hand against her back in his own attempt to comfort her. She finds herself straightening underneath his touch, pulling in the emotions she’s incapable of hiding, feeding on his strength. 

Niklaus glares at Kol. 

“You ruined my favourite shirt,” he says, eyebrows raised, and she knows Kol’s trying to channel Niklaus’ anger onto him rather than it settling onto her. She knows if she keeps on pushing Niklaus that his hands will wrap around her neck in an attempt to break it again. “You broke my finger. You cut my hair when I was - what is it? - fourteen.”

“We were children,” he says through gritted teeth.

“I shall never recover from what you took from me, Niklaus. Always taking, never giving. You will never learn of the destruction you leave in your wake is by your hand and your hand alone.” Kol takes a step forward, back straight, and it’s the angriest she’s seen her brother in a long, long time. They now stand shoulder to shoulder, for once on the same side of the chess board. But he moves away from her, advancing slowly towards Niklaus.

Niklaus’ face only tightens, his jaw clenching. She imagines his hands are balled into fists in an attempt to prevent himself from ripping Kol’s heart out. “I wish to speak to ‘Bekah,” he says through gritted teeth. “ _Alone._ ”

Kol grins. “Rebekah,” he turns to her. “Does the lady doth protest my presence?”

Niklaus turns to glare at Rebekah, challenging her. She swallows against the lump in her throat. Raising her head, she finds herself inhaling deeply to collect herself, to ground herself in Kol’s strength. “No,” she says. “I wish for my brother to be here.”

Kol’s hand shoots out to rest against Niklaus’ collarbone, as if to fix the collar of his shirt, but she knows better, just as Nik does. He speaks quietly, as if only Niklaus can hear, but it rings sharply in her ears as both of Kol’s hands come to rest against his shoulders. “I suggest you give her a little bit of a breather, Niklaus. Maybe for a few decades.” He wipes lint, or so she believes, from Niklaus’ dark business shirt. “Unlike me, she still sees the good in you that died with that frightened little boy many centuries ago.” 

There’s a long pause before Kol’s gaze meets Niklaus’. She swears Nik doesn’t blink at all. She can’t hear him breathing, either. “She’ll come to you in her own time, Niklaus. So I suggest you buy her a watch so she can run by her own clock.”

Kol moves away, taking long steps backwards, never revealing his back to Niklaus. “You earn forgiveness,” her brother says, his voice soft, something akin to the boy she remembers in a past life. “You don’t demand it.”

Niklaus glares at Kol, long, hard, waiting for him to break, but Kol, she knows, has an amused look on his face as she watches his arms come to rest behind him, hands clasped as his fingers seem to countdown to something. Then, his gaze turns to hers, and Rebekah finds her heart swelling in her chest. His face wears anger and heartbreak and something she remembers from years ago.

He leaves, walking slowly, like a human, feet hard against the ground. He brushes hard against Kol, like a child, but he remains distant, apart from her, when he passes. The only thing that touches her is a gentle brush against her wrist with the backs of his fingers. 

*

It’s several months after that she realises Niklaus’ face conveyed opened, frightened, fear.


End file.
